The Fall of Man, Where It All Began

Tom Shrader introduces a series on grace by examining Genesis 3, the pivotal chapter explaining humanity's fallen condition. He walks through Satan's temptation strategy, Adam and Eve's fall, and God's response, showing how one man's sin brought spiritual death to all. This foundational understanding of human depravity sets the stage for comprehending God's sovereign grace in salvation.

“When Adam sinned, he plunged all of us into this situation, no one exempt from us, and haven't you seen that - that's just why I believe this is an actual story.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Grace for Life, Grace for Living

Recorded: 2008

Duration: 52 min

Themes: grace, sin, fall, temptation, salvation, sovereignty, forgiveness, redemption, struggling with sin, new believer, questioning salvation, feeling condemned, seeking forgiveness, understanding faith, young adult, pastor

Scripture: Genesis 3:1-24, Romans 3:23, Romans 6:23, Romans 5:6-12, Ephesians 2:8, 1 John 2:16, John 8:44, 1 Peter 5:8, 2 Corinthians 5:17-20, Genesis 1:1, Genesis 2:16

Theological Themes: total depravity, fallen nature, original sin, human condition, divine sovereignty, gods control, doctrines of grace, calvinism

Full Transcript

Open your Bibles, if you would, please, to Romans chapter 3, and we are going to begin today a series, and I've titled this series, Grace for Life and Grace for Living. It's the series formally known as God's Plan for Salvation.

Several months ago I started telling you that my plan was to rework this series. It is a series that's been called God's Plan for Salvation, it's also known as the Doctrines of Grace. It's a historic look at salvation. Part of it is the truth of predestination, election, choosing by God, salvation by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

When we talk about the DNA, like we just did for three weeks, when we talk about the DNA of East Valley Bible Church, this study and this belief that we think, and we're going to show you hopefully over the next few weeks, flows right from the Scripture, is central to who we are. I think if you talk to most people who understand East Valley Bible Church, or some that don't even understand it but have a caricature of it, would say, well, that's that Calvinistic doctrines of election, predestination church, and we don't shrink away from that at all, but we do try to put some definition around that, because that's usually said in a disparaging way.

A Fresh Approach to Grace

So what I want to do in this series this time, I teach it on the even-numbered years in the fall. So what I want to do this time is take a bit of a different approach and look at the same issue, but talk about grace in the way that I think we've done pretty successfully to this point, which is the grace that leads us from being lost to the point of conversion where God saves us. I think we do a really good job of that. I'm not sure we do as adequate a job on what it means to live by grace.

So that's the title, Grace for Life, being born again, coming to understand God, who He really is, and then Grace for Living, now to begin to work out my salvation in fear and trembling. It would be valuable, if you are brand new to this, it would be valuable for you to go back on the website and listen to this series as it was presented last time.

I did that yesterday myself. I went to the site and you simply go to Messages on the left, click and you'll see Archive, click and you'll see Series, go to Series, and it's called God's Plan for Salvation and there the seven lessons are. That would really be helpful to you to supplement this. Also, we brought in a fairly extensive reading list. By that I mean 8 or 10 books that are not just those heavily doctrinal books that we have on campus all the time, but some of those that also take this truth and give you a practical component of that. So beginning next week I want to introduce some of these books to you.

The Sovereignty of God

What we're in essence talking about here when we talk about this topic of salvation and God's plan for salvation is the sovereignty of God. It really gets down to the fundamental issue of who is God, not just in salvation but in all things.

In his book Foundations of the Christian Faith, James Boyce writes this, speaking of the attributes of God and focusing on the sovereignty of God: "God has absolute authority and rule over His creation. In order to be sovereign, God must also be all-knowing, all-powerful and absolutely free. If He were limited in any one of these areas, He would not be entirely sovereign. Yet sovereignty of God is greater than any of these attributes which it contains. Others may seem more important to us, love for instance, but a little thought will show that the exercise of any of these attributes is made possible only by the sovereignty of God. God might love, for example, but if He weren't sovereign, circumstances could thwart His love, making that love useless to us. It is the same with God's justice. He may desire to establish justice among human beings, but if He were not sovereign, His justice could be frustrated and injustice could prevail."

So what we're talking about is God being God. We're talking about God being sovereign. He created this, He didn't just wind it up and walk away, that His sovereign plan is being worked out among and in and through us. And what we're looking at is the issue of our salvation in the context of what the Bible says about God. That's what we come back to again and again and again.

If we're going to talk about really anything, if we're going to talk about God Himself, what you think and what I feel are relevant compared to what God says about Himself, that's what you really want to understand.

A Life-Changing Discovery

I got this email this week, and it is so encouraging, and I'll comment on it along the way. "I just wanted to say how excited I am that you're going to be doing this series on God's plan for salvation again. This will be my fifth time hearing it, and I never grow tired of this message and teaching. I've been a Christian since 1962."

Now this, by the way, I read this, I'm going to make some application points along the way of the email, but this may be your experience. This person is saying, I've been around church all my life, but I'd really never heard this stuff.

"I've been a Christian since 1962, and when I heard this teaching for the first time eight years ago, I walked into the parking lot after the service, shaking my head, wondering why I'd never heard this before. I have to admit that at first, I rejected this completely, but something made me want to hear more. So I came back in the weeks that followed, and the more I heard, the more I wanted to learn."

Now listen to this. I love this. "I remember spending the next 18 months reading, studying, going to classes, spending many sleepless nights listening and re-listening to tapes and CDs about the doctrine. But in the end, I've embraced it as truth, and it's absolutely changed my life."

So I have a couple of things, especially if you've been around church for a while. If this is, you've been around church for a while, you have some sort of church background, and

Yet these things we're going to talk about, if they're new to you, as my grandpa would say, it's going to jar your preserves. It's going to shake you up. It's going to just get you all bent out of shape, and you're going to have all these emotions. You're going to be angry, why didn't I hear it before? What kind of church am I? What kind of church is this? It must be a cult.

And what I'm saying to you is, what happened in this person's life is a testimony that we hear all over the place at East Valley Bible Church. And what I want you to see that I love is there was struggle and pain, and it just didn't go through like this. There wasn't a pill that you could take or a little magic dust that we had. It took her 18 months, and at the end of it, she says, it's changed my life. That's where I want to get.

"Thank you for taking extra time to teach the message again and again. It's not just doctrine linked to some guy named Calvin, but it's become a way of life for me. Because I now recognize who God is, what He's done for me, and that I'm nothing. I'm so grateful for His grace and mercy. This is the most important and powerful teaching I've ever heard. I realize that it's truly all about Him and not about me, and I love Him more every day."

The Objective of Our Study

That's the whole objective here. The whole objective here is not for us to take some teaching of a man and hold it up, but to look at the Scripture and to see what the Scripture says about who God is and who we are, and is there a problem in that relationship, and if so, what's the solution?

In fact, I just wrote these questions just based on the title of God's plan for salvation. It immediately to me raises five questions. Who needs to be saved, if anybody? What do we need to be rescued or delivered from? Is there indeed a way of deliverance? If there's a way of deliverance, can I know it? And if I know what that way is, is it available to me? So those are some of the questions we want to talk about.

Five Concrete Goals for This Study

I'm going to give you five things right up front, because I don't want this to be an exercise in doctrine and knowledge that puffs you up. I have five concrete goals for you and me in this study.

Number one, that our worship of God is deepened. You sang songs, whether you're here in the chapel or over in the conference center, I guarantee you, you just sang songs about God and His grace and His mercy, how you can trust Him and never fear, and you exalt His name, all of these things. Let me tell you, when you understand the sovereignty of God and He gets bigger and bigger and bigger, that worship becomes deeper and deeper and deeper, because all of a sudden your eyes and heart and mind are focused on a big God. J.W. Tozer says, our theology does not ascend high enough or descend low enough. It doesn't ascend high enough to let God be God or descend low enough to see man, you and me, as we really are. So that our worship would deepen.

Here's the second thing, that there would be in our hearts a spirit of humility. One of the unintended consequences of teaching this series frequently in some people's lives here at the church, is they become extraordinarily arrogant. And they want to all of a sudden think they've got some truth that nobody else has, so that all of a sudden everywhere they go, every home group, every time they go to get their haircut, every time they go to Costco, every time they're with another Christian, this becomes some sort of measurement of spiritual maturity. And rather than have exactly the effect it should, which is to humble you and break you, it somehow builds you up.

We are stripping away in this series anything that you might feel in any way, shape or form that you bring to the idea of salvation. That salvation is utterly, entirely, completely, wholly a work of God, and it's based on His good pleasure, nothing in you. There was nothing in you that was intriguing to God or interesting to God, and in spite of you He saves you. That should not puff you up. If that puffs you up, you don't get it.

Finding Comfort in God's Sovereignty

Here's the third thing, that there would be comfort in the midst of trials and difficulties and sorrows. When I begin to see the sovereignty of God, I know that nothing is outside the realm of His control and authority. So God's not in heaven going, oh my word, I never saw this coming. I never thought, wow, what a mess. Who would have dreamt? He's not in heaven unaware of your physical hurt or relational pain or any of the things in your life.

And in fact, talk about the DNA of East Valley Bible Church, here you go, in fact, everything in your life is either caused by or allowed by God, and if that's not true, then He's not God. Now again, here's what I've learned, because I spend a lot of time obviously here, but I spend a lot of time in the marketplace, and some of us are so familiar with those phrases that we lose the power of them. But I will tell you for some people in this room here in the chapel and in the conference center now and tonight here on campus, we rock their world when we say everything is caused by or allowed by God, and yet that's what the Bible teaches.

So in the midst of this comes great comfort. Whatever comes at me, God uses it for His good. I know all of this strengthens my endurance.

The Joy of Evangelism Under God's Sovereignty

Here's the fourth thing. When we talk about the sovereignty of God sometimes, we will hear this, well if God's decided who He's going to save, then why should I even evangelize? One of the wonderful practical benefits of understanding God's sovereignty in all things, including salvation, is I have great comfort and joy in evangelism. Just as God has ordained who He will save, He's ordained the means by which He'll save them, and that is through our proclamation of the truth.

So do we evangelize? You bet. When I look at, like William Carey, the father of modern missions, you found a guy who would embrace

these doctrines of grace. That did not impede in any way his idea or passion to take the gospel message to India. It only intensified it and also provided him encouragement and joy in the midst of it, because the result—meaning whether a person responds or not—is not my job. That's God's job.

So God wants from you and me one thing as it relates to that gospel, outside of obedience to it, and that's the proclamation of it. As we proclaim that gospel, God is going to, in some places, change hearts and in other places not. Sometimes you're going to share that gospel and people are going to respond, and they're going to say, "This is the sweetest thing I've ever heard." In other times they're going to reject it. It doesn't matter—it's not you, it's God that opened that pair of eyes to respond.

Great Security in Our Salvation

Here's the fifth thing, and there may be others, but for now it's the fifth thing: we find great security in the midst of this. We will, in a few weeks, just camp in Romans 8: "If God's for us, who can be against us? What can separate us from the love of Christ?" Philippians 1:6: "He who began a good work in you will continue it until the day of Christ Jesus." My relationship with God is absolutely secure.

Here's the way we love to say it: You and I who are truly saved, truly rescued and delivered, are as certain of heaven as the saints who are already there. There's nothing I can do to break that relationship. Even in the midst of my sin, though the intensity of my communion with God, the vitality of it can be destroyed and affected by my sin, the union itself can't be broken. God's accepted me.

Picking up on that idea of God being all-knowing, it's not like you're going to get into this for a while and then all of a sudden you begin to have this issue, you begin to sin and God goes, "If I knew that about you, I would have never chosen you. If I'd have known that, doggone it." He knows everything. I love this: He knows everything you've done, everything you will do, every thought you've had, everything you wanted to do but didn't do, and He accepts you anyway. Those are wonderful truths.

That's part of what I hope to tackle in the midst of this series as we embark on this study of grace for life and grace for living.

Who Needs to Be Saved?

Romans 3, verse 23. I want to look at three passages real quickly that are very familiar to many of you, and if they aren't, they need to become familiar to you. When we talk about who needs to be saved, the answer is all of us. Romans 3, verse 23: "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." All of us have sinned in our life.

We're going to discover as we unpack this: we come into this world as sinners, separated from God. That's our nature, and then our nature manifests itself in our behavior.

Saved From What?

Do we need to be rescued? Look at Romans 6, verse 23: "The wages of sin is death." So when we sin, what we earn is death, and death means literally here separation. I need to be rescued and delivered from what? I need to be rescued from death.

Peter delivers this wonderful sermon that's recorded by Luke in Acts 2, and he said Jesus put an end to the agony of death. I was rescued from that. That's the way of deliverance. You see it? "The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus." The antidote to death is life. It's life that I find in Christ.

He is the way. That's what Jesus says: "I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me."

The Way of Salvation

Is there a way I can know? Yes, He makes it known to you, and is it available to you? Here's what He says: "Whoever believes will be saved. All who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved." Is there hope for you? We will sit here and we will talk to you about sin, and if you understand and see that sin in your life and you confess that sin, God promises that He will save you. Is it as easy as that?

One more reference. Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8—because here's the way of salvation, and we're going to be right back in Romans 5. Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8: "By grace you have been saved through faith. It's not of yourself, it's a gift of God, not as a result of works."

Who needs to be saved? Everybody. Saved from what? Saved from death and separation from God. Is there a way of delivery? Yes, it's Jesus. Can we know that? Jesus came that we might have life and have that life abundantly. Is it available? Yes. If you will confess Jesus as Lord and believe that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

That's utterly, completely a work of God's grace. Grace by very definition explicitly states that it is unearned or undeserved. So this way of salvation has nothing to do with us or anything we have done or are doing or will be doing, and it's completely a work of God.

The Heart of the Gospel

Look back at Romans chapter 5, and we'll tie all of this together by way of a really fast overview of what we're going to be looking at. Romans chapter 5, verse 1: "We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Verse 6: "While we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly." Verse 8: "God demonstrated His own love for us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Verse 10: "For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we'll be saved by His life, and not only this, we also exalt in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom we now have received the reconciliation."

Paul talks about this in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, at the end of that chapter, when he says this: "If anyone is in Christ he's a new creature." Now all these things are from God who's reconciled us to Himself through

Christ and given us a ministry of reconciliation, therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, calling people to be reconciled to God through Christ. That's the guts of this whole thing.

Now I'm going to invite you to turn to the front of your Bibles to the book of Genesis, Genesis chapter 3. One time I was invited to speak at a church and I said is there any topic and they said no, you talk about whatever God lays in your heart and I said well that's sin and deception. They said well do whatever you want to do so here's what I did. I called it the greatest chapter in the Bible and taught Genesis 3.

Personal Testimony About Genesis 3

Now part of that flows from my own personal experience. God saved me in 1980. The man that He used in my life and throughout His life and in the most significant way than any other person, and I always exclude my family from this, but any person other than my family, the person who had the greatest effect on me in my entire life is Larry Wright. In fact this was the phrase that people used to use - when God first saved me I was so devoted to Larry's teaching that they would say everywhere that Larry went Tom was sure to go. That's what I did. I followed him around.

I literally, not figuratively, literally carried his briefcase and a tape recorder and everywhere that he went I took his briefcase in, I set the podium up, I got the chair out, I set up the tape recorder, I wired him for sound, got him prepared so that we could capture his teaching and share it. To this day, by the way, you can access all of that information free online, discover-life.org, and that's all of Larry's teaching, discover-life.org.

When Larry taught Genesis 3, it was huge for me. It was one of those moments where, and I was a follower of Christ, I was a Christian, I was growing, but all of a sudden it was one of those gigantic moments for me. So I bring with this the passion of somebody who's been touched in a significant way by this chapter. And I wrote some of the things down as they were going through my mind 20 years ago.

All of a sudden I began to really understand why Jesus died, I began to understand my spiritual condition, what it means to be a natural man, and the consequences of that. I began to find answers to those great questions in life: who am I, why am I here, where am I going, all those things. And I wrote this: it's hard to read Genesis 3 without saying to yourself, been there, done that. I am daily tempted, and the fall reoccurs daily in my life. Genesis 3, for me, just tied this all together.

The Doctrinal Importance of Genesis 3

Now for us, in our examination of salvation, you're going to see real quickly why Genesis 3 is so important. Paul, obviously, we spent a ton of time just by way of our introduction in the book of Romans in the writing of Paul, well in Romans chapter 5 verse 12 he says, "therefore just as through one man sin entered into the world, death entered into the world through sin, so death spread to all men, because all men sin." Genesis 3 is that pivotal doctrinal chapter and practical chapter as well.

Ray Stedman, in his introduction to Genesis 3 writes this: "We come to chapter 3 of Genesis with a heightened sense of anticipation. In many ways, this is the most important piece of information ever conveyed to man." Let me read that sentence again, that's a huge statement. In many ways, this is the most important piece of information ever conveyed to man. Let's say that's hyperbole, let's say there's some exaggeration in there. At least grab your attention, this is important stuff.

Here is the ultimate explanation for the tensions among nations. Here we find the answer to the eternal why that arises in our hearts in the midst of times of sorrow and tragedy. Here's the explanation for over a hundred centuries of human heartache, misery, torture, blood, sweat, and tears. Here's the reason for the powerful fascination with drugs, for the passion we have for power, the lure of wealth, the enticement of forbidden sex, both to young and old alike. Here's the only reasonable answer for the existence of these things in the world.

Contemporary Scholars on Genesis 3

Al Mohler has a new book out on preaching, and in the midst of this he's challenged those of us who teach to cling to the Word. And it is not at all surprising when he talks about that, at least to me, that in the midst of this he ends up going back to Genesis 3. And he lists all the questions we would ask. And he would talk about the importance of it.

And he says this: "How you answer the questions will affect everything you do in life, from sexuality to the sanctity of life, the purposefulness of our labor, to the meaning of life. This quite literally is the most basic and fundamental of questions. Are we made for a purpose, or are we an accidental product of a chaotic universe? Of course the fact that God created the world does not explain everything we experience. So soon after creation in Genesis 1 comes the story of the fall in Genesis 3. We cannot understand anything about ourselves in this present condition without immediate reference to this. Indeed, it is the fall into sin that explains all the suffering, all the strife, all the pain, and the conflict in our life."

Genesis 3: The Missing Link

So if you're reading along, Genesis 2 ends with peace, harmony, innocence, unity, fellowship. Genesis 4 has murder, strife, anger, hurt, pain, guilt. If you don't have Genesis 3, you're going to read this and go, what happened? What happened here? And the answer to all of this is Genesis chapter 3.

When I was a young man on Saturday night, we would sit, you talk about great television, we would sit and it would go like this: Bob Newhart, the good Bob Newhart, Mary Tyler Moore, and All in the Family. That's a Saturday night. And in All in the Family, it was pretty cutting-edge at its time, there were always comments, there was an agenda, just like there is with any show you see on television. And when they say it's just entertainment, it's not entertainment, there may be an element of entertainment, there's always an

Satan's Strategy Revealed

Norman Lear and that ilk were pushing an agenda. In All in the Family, you had four key characters: Archie Bunker and his wife Edith, their daughter Gloria, and her husband Michael Stivic. Michael would be atheistic and very liberal in his politics during Vietnam and Nixon, while Archie was "my country right or wrong," so you had this juxtaposition.

Religion had the same component. Michael and Gloria have a baby and Archie wants him baptized, but Michael sees no value in this. I remember one episode where there's this battle over whether to baptize this kid. Michael finally says to Archie, "Tell me this Archie, if there's a God, why is the world in such a mess?" A great question. Archie heads to the Wisdom Bank, a little overdrawn here, and finally frustrated says, "Why do I always have to give these answers, Edith? Tell this guy why, if God created the world, why is the world in such a mess?"

That's a great question, and by the way, the people around you are asking legitimate questions. We aren't afraid of those because we have legitimate answers. This answer may not satisfy them, but let me show you how the world was created.

God's Perfect Creation

Turn to the left one page from Genesis 3. Genesis 1:1 says, "In the beginning God created the heaven and earth." There's more to it, and I've read guys who look at the science of creation, but God spoke this thing into existence. Somehow there was this unmoved mover, this original, eternal, self-existing power being—God—who created it all.

As He creates and unfolds this universe, He then drops into it His creation, in many ways His crowning glory: the only thing created in His image and likeness of eternality, understanding, and wisdom—man, you and me. He created man and gave him a command in chapter 2, verse 16: "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely, but from the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat from it, for the day you eat from it you will die."

Up to this point God has created and said it is good, it is good, it is very good. Verse 18 has the first malediction, not benediction: "It is not good for man to be alone," and God creates woman.

The Structure of Genesis 3

When we get to Genesis 3, we see temptation and sin and the response to it. If I were to divide this chapter into three sections, they would go like this: verses 1 through 5 show how Satan works; verses 6 through 13 show man's reaction to temptation and sin; and verses 14 through 24 show God's reaction to man's sin.

I will tell you, if we were really going to unpack Genesis 3, we would take weeks to do it. Susan and I were driving down to the kids' house to watch the Iowa game yesterday, and I said I've got a real dilemma tomorrow. To really unpack Genesis 3—really take it apart—is going to take two, three, four, five, six, seven weeks. My instinct is to do a quick flyover and pull out the key things, though it will raise questions that won't get answered. What do you think? She said she wouldn't spend six weeks on this.

I want to fly over this, but I didn't get from here to the door before people asked me a whole bunch of questions. This raises many questions, but we're not going in depth because I want to bring alive what Paul is talking about in Romans 5:12—that sin entered the world through one man.

The Serpent's Appearance

Look what happens. "Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God has made. And he said to the woman..." We could spend a whole bunch of time just right here because we've got talking serpents, yet the Scripture tells us that he was shining, brilliant, beautiful.

I presume if you went to the zoo today and a snake started talking to you, it would be a cause of concern. But just the opposite happens here. There's nothing that is pushing Eve away, and in fact there's something alluring about him. The serpent comes, and we know from the balance of Scripture that this is Satan.

Satan appears almost always in one of three forms: either a subtle serpent, an angel of light, or a roaring lion. Though he may appear in one of these three forms, he always has the same intention, which is what Jesus says in John 8:44: "You are of your father the devil. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth because there's no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies."

Satan's Real Nature and Threat

In 1 Peter 5:8, Peter says to us, "Be sober of spirit and be on alert. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour." That's what Satan's all about—lying, destruction, murder. He is a real creature.

Very alarming: one of the last Barna surveys I saw showed something like 67% of those who said they were Christians did not believe Satan was real. What an advantage that is for Satan! He's a real creature who's bent on your real destruction. Martin Luther said that there is no equal found among men to Satan. He's not God—we don't want to elevate him to that—but he's stronger than you.

He comes and says to her in verse 1, "Indeed, really? Did God really say this? Did God really say you should not eat from any tree of the garden?" And she corrects him. Now she didn't have this information...

Somehow she got the message. "The fruit of the tree of the garden we may eat, but from the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God said you shouldn't eat it or touch it lest you die."

And the serpent says to Him, "You shall not die." Some love to show a progression there. He comes and says, "Indeed, is there doubt?" Then she begins to add to the word of God because God didn't say anything about touching it, did He? He just said if you eat it, you'll die. I don't know if that's a legitimate application at all.

Somehow he then brazenly, in the midst of what I think is an alluring, loving, "I'm here for you" attitude, says a direct contradiction to God. "God's lying to you. You're not going to die. For God knows—God's got an agenda here—God knows the day you eat from it, your eyes will be open, you'll be like Him, knowing good and evil."

Satan's Threefold Temptation Strategy

There's the temptation. In comes Satan, guns blazing, seeking to sow rebellion in our heart and coming in a way that he always takes. First John 2:16: "All that is of this world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the boastful pride of life is not from the Father, but it's from the world."

How does Satan tempt us? Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, boastful pride of life. Look at it in verse 6. The woman saw the food: the tree was good for food—lust of the flesh; delight to the eyes—aesthetically pleasing; desirable to make you wise—the boastful pride of life. She sees all of this. She begins to understand this.

By the way, we have no time frame here. Satan tempts her and leaves. We don't know if this is a day, week, hour. My suspicion would be that that one single tree in the middle of paradise all of a sudden has a huge draw for her. She's thinking about it, contemplating, just the way you do with sin, right? You rarely just go sin. I mean, the really good ones you have to plan them, don't you? Think about them, scheme, arrange things, figure out when nobody will be home or nobody will be there or how nobody will find out.

Satan is confident in this. I did a little mini-message on this one time called "Satan's Standard Operating Procedure." I took this and laid it against the temptation that he has with Jesus, and he tempts Jesus in exactly these same three areas: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life. He's very confident in this.

The Fatal Choice

Eve finally, in verse 6, sees it's good for food, sees it's a delight to the eyes, sees it will make her wise. She took the fruit, ate it, gave it also to her husband, and he ate of it.

I want you to understand, again, this is not about nutrition. It's not about the food in and of itself. There was nothing wrong with that fruit. My doctor, in fact, tells me that I could use more of it. Fruit isn't the problem here.

God had said, "Don't eat from it." The minute that God put that up, all of a sudden Eve is now confronted with: is she going to submit to God's will or her own will? That's what all sin is all about. All sin is me saying, "I'm going to do my thing, and to heck with you, God. I'm the exception to this rule. I understand what you're saying, that this might be destructive for many. I can see how that could be hurtful to some, but they're not as mature, and they're not as strong, and they're not as intellectually brilliant as I am. I can handle this."

The Immediate Consequences

What's man's reaction once he's sinned? Look at verse 7: "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings."

This is the first record of abnormal behavior in all the history of mankind. Satan understood; naked in sin, he understood all the area of sin. In verse 6, he decides he's going to cover himself up. So he grabbed the fig leaf and covered himself up with it. Here he must recognize, like Isaiah in chapter 6. Isaiah sees the holy God and says, "Woe is me, for I am undone." There's this holy God, and all of a sudden once I see Him, I'm undone.

That's why man keeps creating a God in his own image. "I'm going to make me a God that doesn't send people to hell. I'm going to make me a God that understands boys will be boys, and that stuff just happens. I'll find me one of these gods that works just fine for me, thank you. I'll give Him enough authority that I can call Him God, but it's not going to be a very big G."

God's Pursuing Questions

He hides, and she hides with him. Then God confronts them with three questions: "Where are you?" "Who told you you were naked?" and "Did you eat from this tree?"

"Where are you?" You understand that question is not God seeking information. God knows where they are, right? It's like somebody's coming to your house 20 minutes late and the phone rings. They say, "Listen, I can't find—I don't know where—I'm driving in circles. How do I get to your house?" You say to them, "Where are you?" Well, I thought they wanted to get to your house. We can't tell them how to get to your house until we fully understand where you are.

"Where are you, Adam? Isn't this odd, Adam? We had this beautiful moment of communion and communication, and now you're hiding with fig tree leaves on you in a bush somewhere. How in the world did you get there?"

Maybe you're right there today. Maybe you're all messed up and you know it, and in your heart of hearts, God's calling out to you saying...

Where are you at this very moment? You're looking around going, "How in the world did I get here? How did I get in the middle of this mess?" You have to understand it, because once you understand that, God can tell you how to get to Him.

Well, God shifts here from prosecuting attorney to defense attorney pretty quickly. Adam is confronted with this. "Who told you?" Again, there is—and you have to admit this humanly—there is in your heart a sense of sympathy for Adam. There aren't many excuses here.

We're pretty good at that, aren't we? We live in a society where we're always victims and never villains. Adam didn't have that opportunity. Adam couldn't go, "Well, it's my parents. I'm a victim of my socioeconomic background. It's education. If I wouldn't have gone to the U of A, I would have never turned out like this." He can't say those things. He doesn't have those options.

The Blame Game Begins

So what does he say? And then you know the old joke. There it is: "It's the woman You gave me." Then He goes to the woman and she says, "It's the serpent that You created." How interesting our thought pattern is. Even in the midst of our sin, there's a sense in which we're saying, "God, it's really Your fault. You made her, You made it. I don't know, I'll take some blame, but it looks like it's really Your fault."

God begins to deal with all of those things. He says to the serpent in verse 14, "Because you've done this, cursed are you more than all the cattle and beasts. You'll crawl on your belly." Verse 15: "I'll put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed. He'll bruise you on the head. You'll bruise Him on the heel."

There's an amazing picture there of the virgin birth of Christ—her seed, Christ—who will appear and be wounded in a way that is not fatal, and you will ultimately, Satan, be destroyed.

The Consequences Unfold

For the woman: "I will increase your pain in childbirth, and your desire will still be for your husband. I'm going to put in your heart a desire to compete with him for control of the family."

He says to Adam, "Here's the deal: You're going to work, man. The whole world around you is going to suffer as a result of this."

Then, in verse 21, "The Lord made garments from the skin for Adam and Eve and He clothed them." Leviticus chapter 17, verse 11 says, "It is the blood that makes atonement for the soul."

God's Solution vs. Man's Religion

Satan's standard operating procedure has come to us with lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and boastful pride of life. When we sin, our reaction to it is to be guilty, to hide, to try to find some way to cover ourselves. God's reaction is: something's going to die so that you can live. Beautiful picture.

Again, this is just a little animal. Do you get that? God didn't get the skin of these animals by going over and just coaxing them out of these skins. He kills them. They're gone. Here's death. Here's death now entering the world. And now God provides this coverage.

Do you see that picture? Man's fig leaves: religion. God's skin: Jesus Christ, the atonement, the promise that's there.

Everything Changed

In Genesis 3, sin enters the world, and all that we see around us is affected by this sin. Again, Al Mohler writes: "The fall was not just an individual piccadillo. It changed everything. When sin entered into the experience of the cosmos, everything was affected. Thus, when God pronounced His verdict against Adam, He tells him that even the earth has now become hostile. It'll fight against Adam for its harvest. Adam will have to work hard for the earth, and the earth will not yield its product to him willingly."

Moreover, in the pain of childbirth, Eve will be reminded of the fall and of her sin. Even in the glorious generation of life, there will be the sharp reminder of humanity's fallenness.

Finally, because of their sin, Adam and Eve will be expelled from paradise. What God had for them and for us was lost. We are blocked from seeing it, prevented from experiencing it. That is what God truly had for us and prohibited from eating of the tree of life. That's the result of the fall.

The Universal Condition

Now, we go to Romans chapter 5, and what does He say? He says it was through one man's sin, that very thing that we looked at. Let's turn there. Romans chapter 5, verse 10, right where we were last week. We've been reconciled. We were enemies. We've been reconciled to God through Christ.

Look at verse 12: "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all have sinned." When I look around me, I see the universal condition of man, that all of us have sinned.

The question is: what's the extent of that effect of that sin on our life? Did that sin merely make us sick, like with a cold? Did it make us really ill, as though we have cancer? Did it render us almost incapacitated, immobile from the neck down, using physical pictures here?

Dead in Sin

Here's what the Bible says: "The wages of sin is death." The Bible tells us that we were dead in our sins and trespasses. If we're dead in sin, we're dead in our sin. If we're going to talk about God's plan for salvation, the key in my mind—the key—is what we just looked at. How do we get this way? It's through Adam's sin.

The Bible tells us that when Adam sinned, he plunged all of us into this situation. No one is exempt from this. Haven't you seen that? Haven't you seen the reality of that?

That's why, by the way, I believe this is an actual story. I don't believe this is a myth or a fable or a parable that was developed to try to convince some ancient mind of some complex truth that they couldn't possibly comprehend. If you trace it all back, I guarantee you we're all going to go back to this original couple, Adam and Eve. When Adam sinned, he plunged all of us into ruin.

That's why when you've got little kids, you have never once had to sit down and teach your kids how to lie. They know it. Or how to steal.

They know it. You got to teach them to tell the truth. You got to teach them to keep their hands off other people's stuff. Why? We all sin.

The Effect of Sin: Spiritual Death

Now, what's the effect of that sin? I'm going to tell you. The effect of the sin is we are dead spiritually. We are dead to spiritual things. Not just sick. Not just really, really sick. We are dead.

What we'll learn next week is something that I think you instinctively know. And if you've been through this series before, you know intellectually. There is a vast difference between being dead and mostly dead. Because if I'm mostly dead, what? I'm still alive. We got to get right there. I really believe that's the key.

The Need for Divine Intervention

Let me just take you one step further. Because once I understand that, I understand there's nothing I can do, then for me to understand the gospel, respond to the gospel, and believe the gospel, something has to happen to me. Something outside of me has to come and touch and infect me. And that's God Himself. Pick up right there next week.

Closing Prayer

Father, thank you for this amazing, wonderful truth. The truth that we admit sometimes is counterintuitive. It's not necessarily what we instinctively would believe. But You did teach it in Your Word. God, thank you that You've opened our eyes to see this truth.

For those who are here, for whom this is familiar territory, God, don't let us miss the awe and wonder of Your grace and mercy. For those who are looking and maybe like the email that we read at the beginning are saying, I don't know, God, I pray that You'd give them a tenacity to study Your Word and let Your Word speak to this issue. Not what we think, not what we feel, not even what we've been taught in the past. What does Your Word say about our condition?

God, we're dead and life comes through Jesus and Him alone and we thank You for that and we praise You in His name. Amen.

Have a great week. I'll see you next week.